Ex-compliance director fined and given ban by FCA
A former compliance director at network Financial Group has been fined £33,800 by the FCA and also been given a ban.
This morning it was announced that Stephen Bell has been handed the penalty for "systemic weaknesses in the design and execution of network Financial Group's compliance systems and controls".
The FCA has banned Mr Bell from performing the compliance oversight function. This follows previous enforcement action against the group in July 2014.
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The FCA publicly censured Financial Ltd and Investments Ltd (the firms), two subsidiaries of the group, for "systems and controls failings" and used its suspension power to ban the firms from recruiting new appointed representatives and individual advisers for 126 days.
Of significant concern, the FCA said, was the firms' "inadequate systems and controls relating to the recruitment, training, monitoring and control of its ARs and CF30s and the firms' compliance and file checking processes which did not adequately identify and assess risks".
Georgina Philippou, the FCA's acting director of enforcement and market oversight Division, said: "This action shows that a compliance director of a network has an important role in terms of ensuring that systems and controls across the network are focussed on minimising the risk of mis-selling and the provision of unsuitable advice to consumers.
"We view Mr Bell's failings as particularly serious because he had been put on notice of the need for significant improvements in the firms' systems and controls and compliance. The network model is undermined if the senior managers of the principle firm do not carry out their responsibilities. "
Between 20 August 2008 and 16 January 2013, Mr Bell was responsible for compliance systems and controls at the firms.
The announcement from the FCA stated that it found that Mr Bell designed and implemented the firms' systems and controls and was "therefore knowingly concerned in the firms' breaches".
Mr Bell agreed to settle the case at an early stage of the investigation and qualified for a 30% discount, without which he would have been fined £48,389.
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- Meanwhile the FCA has also banned a former chief executive from holding a position in the financial services industry and fined him £450,000.
Sam Kenny, the former chief executive of Gracechurch Investments Limited, a stockbroking firm that is now dissolved, was handed the penalty today.
The FCA said: "Mr Kenny led Gracechurch when it routinely mis-sold small-capitalised stocks through pressure, misrepresentation and unsuitable advice. Mr Kenny used pressure selling techniques himself.
"Mr Kenny also made the decision to withhold from the authority a non-compliant sales call recording that it had requested, deliberately caused Gracechurch's lawyers to provide to the authority false dates of meetings of a particular Gracechurch committee and misled the authority about how the firm handled a conflict of interest with its clients."